Wilmington on Movies: Dark Shadows

Most interestingly the filmmakers take a lead character, Barnabas C., whom I remember as something of an epicene icon, and they let Depp (who has said that he interprets many roles with a gay slant) make Barnabas so unabashedly heterosexual with his lady loves — Eva Green in Lara Parker’s old role of witch/bitch Angelique Bouchard and Bella Heathcote as both eternal 18th century love Josette Duprez and ’70s governess Victoria Winters — that they either die or kill for love of him.

Friday Estimates: May 11, 2012

“The Avengers” continues to break domestic records and will hit $300m in 9 days, still pacing ahead of “The Dark Knight.” Meanwhile Team Burton/Depp/Bonham-Carter opens just about where they do when they aren’t digging into a mega-franchise from another medium. The number will be almost the same as “Sleepy Hollow” and significantly better than “Sweeney Todd” (or “Mars Attacks,” for that matter).

And “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”‘s expansion yielded a very similar Friday number to last year’s expansion of “Midnight in Paris.” It’s the next expansion—near 1000 screens—that will tell the bigger tale, but for now, Searchlight has to be very happy with last night’s results.

Countdown To Cannes: Nichols, Daniels, Dominik

The seventh in a series of snapshots of the twenty-two filmmakers in Competition for the Palme d’Or at the sixty-fifth Festival de Cannes.

Review: GOD BLESS THIS MESS

The only thing worse than the sudden, crushing realization that much of American pop culture is vile, hateful, and stupid is watching a movie in which the main character has this sudden, crushing realization, then proceeds to lecture other characters on said realization. As a result, Bobcat Goldthwait’s “God Bless America” is pretty much doomed from the start, since our hero, Frank (Joel Murray), launches into his diatribe a few minutes after the movie begins.

Wilmington on DVDs: Alambrista!

“Alambrista!”– a moving and perceptive cinematic tale of a Mexican illegal immigrant and his odyssey over the border — is a movie that almost defines American film realism in the ‘70s.

The DVD Wrapup: Underworld, Dark Tide, Kreutzer Sonata, 42nd Street Forever…More

Contrary what’s implied by the cover art, Berry dons a bikini only in the film’s early scenes. Otherwise, her remarkably fine body is fully encased in a wet suit.

Wilmington on DVDs: The Mel Brooks Collection

It’s good to be the King… But sometimes, it‘s better to be the Kaminsky.

Countdown To Cannes: Salles, Loach

The sixth in a series of snapshots of the twenty-two filmmakers in Competition for the Palme d’Or at the sixty-fifth Festival de Cannes.

Wilmington on DVDs: Haywire

Steven Soderbergh is smooth, and he’s never smoother than when he’s engaged in some big crime thriller — whether it’s one of the Oceans or something brainier and more realistic, like “Traffic.” I had mixed feelings about “Haywire,” though. I liked it okay, I guess. But I should have liked it more, since it’s the same type of rock-’em-sock-’em wish-fulfiller as “The Limey.”

Wilmington on DVDs: Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie

TIM & ERIC’S BILLION DOLLAR MOVIE (Also Blu-ray/DVD Combo, with Digital Copy) (One Half Star) U.S.: Tim Heidecker-Eric Wareheim, 2012 (Magnolia) I have just one thing to say about this sorry excuse for a movie — this nauseatingly taste-challenged, almost putrefyingly preposterous goulash of scatological gags, failed nonsense, barf jokes, poop jokes, piddle jokes, and…

Countdown To Cannes: Im Sang-soo, Hong Sang-soo

The fifth in a series of snapshots of the twenty-two filmmakers in Competition for the Palme d’Or at the sixty-fifth Festival de Cannes.

Wilmington on Movies: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The movie — based by director John Madden and screenwriter Ol Parker on Deborah Moogach‘s novel, “These Foolish Things“ — is a nice little comedy-drama, intelligently made and beautifully designed and shot. But the acting is what makes it special. That glittering cast of British senior stars are a magnificent seven.

Wilmington on Movies: The Avengers

These guys aren’t horsing around. They want to make something ass-kickingly fabulous out of this ensemble super-movie — this all-star mega-picture that brings together (for the first time) seven of Stan Lee’s Marvel comic book superstars in their big-movie super-reincarnations: Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Chris Evans’ Captain America, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye, The Hulk (now played by Mark Ruffalo), and the group’s star of stars and champion wisecracker, Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man (played to the hilt by Robert Downey, Jr.).

The Weekend Report, May 6, 2012

“The Avengers” rewrote the record books with the biggest ever opening three-day weekend that’s estimated at $200.5 million. With $30 million more than the former champ, there’s little chance that the Monday actual will change Sunday’s ebullience.

Countdown to Cannes: Loznitsa, Mungiu

The fourth in a series of snapshots of the twenty-two filmmakers in Competition for the Palme d’Or at the sixty-fifth Festival de Cannes.

Friday Estimates: May 4, 2012

“The Avengers” is out of the gate with with a Hulk-sized opening. Estimates put “The Avengers” at number two on the list of all-time opening days at the box office – behind “Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part II” and the first “Twilight” movie.

The DVD Wrapup: W.E., Haywire, Theatre Bizarre, Circus Columbia… More

If “Haywire” hadn’t been entrusted to director Steven Soderbergh and writer Lem Dobbs – also responsible for “The Limey” – it might have lacked the class, polish and velocity to prevent it from going straight to DVD.

Countdown To Cannes: Kiarostami, Nasrallah

The third in a series of snapshots of the twenty-two filmmakers in Competition for the Palme d’Or at the sixty-fifth Festival de Cannes.

Wilmington on DVDs: Scarlet Street

Lang‘s personal favorite of all his American movies (his favorite among his German films was M), Scarlet Street pulls us into that special noir world we recognize from the other great dark hard-boiled, high-style masterpieces of the ‘40s: Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, the 1946 The Killers, Out of the Past, Laura, Detour, Criss Cross, Phantom Lady, Raw Deal, Caught, T-Men, Gun Crazy, Force of Evil, and The Maltese Falcon — a world of shadowy buildings and glistening, rain-slickened streets, of hot jazz wailing in an after-hours bar or a seething dance hall, of sultry dames with low-cut dresses and inviting eyes, of cynical hard-guys wearing rain coats and tipped fedoras, cigarettes drooping from their lips and guns clenched in their pockets, of killers to whom slaughter is just a job, nothing personal, and of maniacs and psychos for whom it’s very personal indeed.

Review: The Avengers

Johansson conveys just enough about Natasha to intrigue us and make us want to know more about her — and she does much of it without saying a word. I don’t care what any Johansson haters have to say about her, she is fan-freaking-tastic in this role. She oozes lethal sensuality and her curves couldn’t look better in her skin-tight costumes, but Black Widow is more than just a pretty face, she is a totally bad-ass superhero whose only powers come from herself, and Johansson brings her formidable acting talent in full force here.